What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant.

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals.

The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.